4 ms·

What really grinds my gears: they do the same thing when you're a paying subscriber. I'm with the nyt for two years now, and I can vividly remember seeing the

What really grinds my gears: they do the same thing when you're a paying subscriber. I'm with the nyt for two years now, and I can vividly remember seeing the first ad that was displayed despite me being logged in. How is that okay?! And btw: I wanted to cancel my subscription afterwards, but apparently you can't do that via web from the EU (or not for my subscription type?) - so I need to cancel on the phone, during american business hours. I appreciate the times for their journalism, but their business practice with respect to selling their customers data is beyond inacceptable. I'm already paying you money, get your act together please...

kolp 7y ago
Financial Times do the same thing. About €60 a month for a subscription and they still insist on putting ads in the app. I estimate that the ads only generate a miniscule amount of revenue, yet it really detracts from the user experience.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The ads for paying users are probably worth a lot more than for non paying users.
  - tomatocracy 7y ago
    For the FT specifically, I get the impression that a pretty large portion of subscriptions are corporate/paid for by employers so I'm not sure how true that really is.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      The companies paying for a FT subscription for their employees are going to have well compensated employees, hence valuable eyeballs for advertisers.
      - JohnFen 7y ago
        This. Also, some of those eyes are going to belong to people who make purchasing decisions on the behalf of their employer. Those people are exceptionally valuable to advertisers.
- te_chris 7y ago
  That's why I like the Guardian, if you're a digital sub app is ad free.
  - datenhorst 7y ago
    Is it also data-collection free?
- fortran77 7y ago
  I pay for NY Times (as well as several other papers, like the WSJ). NY Times runs giant banner "subscribe" ads even if you're a paid, logged-in member. I still need ad blocking on! I wouldn't mind ads equivalent to what you see in the real paper -- a Macy's ad at the end of an article, etc. But they should be in the page, and not popping up on top, on the bottom, or over the article.
blowski 7y ago
It annoys me too, but I'm playing devil's advocate to reason it out. When you buy a print copy, it also has adverts. The price you're paying is subsidised by the adverts, it doesn't completely cover the costs. Perhaps there are two possible ends of the spectrum. On one side, you have to pay for all news that you access and there is no advertising. The news will be expensive, so only the wealthy will have access. The government can subsidise it, but that runs the risk of politicising it. At the other, there is only advertising-supported news. The content you see is decided by whoever bids the highest. A blended subscriptions plus advertising model tries to find a middle ground. I guess the argument is that advertising would be OK, if it didn't track your every movement and share that information with thousands of scummy companies. Is that even possible now? Would advertisers pay if they didn't get that information?
- hans1729 7y ago
  >I guess the argument is that advertising would be OK, if it didn't track your every movement and share that information with thousands of scummy companies. Honestly: no. I'd rather pay more than selling my attention, because that's what ads are doing. My time is more valuable than whatever margin they're making by showing me ads, and I'm very confident that I'm not alone with this position. >Is that even possible now? Would advertisers pay if they didn't get that information? This is a really good question, and adding to it: how hard-wired are these mechanisms into modern websites such as the nyt's? I'm pretty sure that there is no simple on-off switch, but how much work would it be to implement one?
  - blowski 7y ago
    A sliding-scale subscription model would be nice, where I could say "I'll pay $100 per month and have no adverts at all" or "I'll only $5 per month, and I'm happy to have a lot of adverts". But the advertisers probably want access to the kind of people who are prepared to part with a lot of money to avoid advertising. You see this in the FT and Economist where it's more expensive to advertise to subscribers, because the advertisers know those people have higher disposable income. If all they can have access to is lower-paid people, I guess there’s a risk a lot of the advertisers will not bother. Maybe there's just an inherent problem here. News can be good quality, independent from government, free from advertising, and available to all. But it can't be all of those things at the same time at a national level.
bkor 7y ago
> And btw: I wanted to cancel my subscription afterwards, but apparently you can't do that via web from the EU (or not for my subscription type?) - so I need to cancel on the phone, during american business hours. There's existing NL law (maybe based on EU regulation?) that makes this impossible. Basically: the way you cancel should be as easy as you subscribe. Meaning, if you could subscribe online, you must be able to cancel the subscription online. If subscribing was utterly difficult, then cancelling can be utterly difficult. If there's EU regulation behind it, usually you can force any foreign company to abide by this. Unfortunately it was difficult to figure out if this NL law was based on any EU regulation (e.g. Consumer Rights Directive from https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/consumers/consumer-contract-law/consumer-rights-directive_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/consumers/consumer-c...).
ohmyblock 7y ago
had same problem trying to cancel my subscription, I've canceled payments through paypal
honkycat 7y ago
I did the exact same thing. I was so pissed off about having to see ads on a website I was paying for. They do the same thing to the US: They force you to call them. I tried to cancel my credit card to get rid of the charge: soon after, they started charging me again. In the end I had to call my credit card company and block all transactions from them, forever. Super scummy, super annoying. Fuck the NYT.
wasted_intel 7y ago
I had the same experience with the Globe and Mail in Canada. You get ads regardless of whether or not you're a paying subscriber, and while you can sign up online, you can't cancel. It was a total pain in the ass to do that over the phone, and it's a glaringly-obvious (and misguided) retention tactic. I'll never subscribe to them again. What a short-sighted way to optimize for revenue at any cost.
levesque 7y ago
Same thing with Wall Street Journal. Can't cancel via web, gotta waste 15 minutes on the phone. Never subscribing again.

kolp 7y ago

Financial Times do the same thing. About €60 a month for a subscription and they still insist on putting ads in the app. I estimate that the ads only generate a miniscule amount of revenue, yet it really detracts from the user experience.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
The ads for paying users are probably worth a lot more than for non paying users.
- tomatocracy 7y ago
  For the FT specifically, I get the impression that a pretty large portion of subscriptions are corporate/paid for by employers so I'm not sure how true that really is.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    The companies paying for a FT subscription for their employees are going to have well compensated employees, hence valuable eyeballs for advertisers.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      This. Also, some of those eyes are going to belong to people who make purchasing decisions on the behalf of their employer. Those people are exceptionally valuable to advertisers.
te_chris 7y ago
That's why I like the Guardian, if you're a digital sub app is ad free.
- datenhorst 7y ago
  Is it also data-collection free?
fortran77 7y ago
I pay for NY Times (as well as several other papers, like the WSJ). NY Times runs giant banner "subscribe" ads even if you're a paid, logged-in member. I still need ad blocking on! I wouldn't mind ads equivalent to what you see in the real paper -- a Macy's ad at the end of an article, etc. But they should be in the page, and not popping up on top, on the bottom, or over the article.

blowski 7y ago

It annoys me too, but I'm playing devil's advocate to reason it out. When you buy a print copy, it also has adverts. The price you're paying is subsidised by the adverts, it doesn't completely cover the costs. Perhaps there are two possible ends of the spectrum. On one side, you have to pay for all news that you access and there is no advertising. The news will be expensive, so only the wealthy will have access. The government can subsidise it, but that runs the risk of politicising it. At the other, there is only advertising-supported news. The content you see is decided by whoever bids the highest. A blended subscriptions plus advertising model tries to find a middle ground. I guess the argument is that advertising would be OK, if it didn't track your every movement and share that information with thousands of scummy companies. Is that even possible now? Would advertisers pay if they didn't get that information?

hans1729 7y ago
>I guess the argument is that advertising would be OK, if it didn't track your every movement and share that information with thousands of scummy companies. Honestly: no. I'd rather pay more than selling my attention, because that's what ads are doing. My time is more valuable than whatever margin they're making by showing me ads, and I'm very confident that I'm not alone with this position. >Is that even possible now? Would advertisers pay if they didn't get that information? This is a really good question, and adding to it: how hard-wired are these mechanisms into modern websites such as the nyt's? I'm pretty sure that there is no simple on-off switch, but how much work would it be to implement one?
- blowski 7y ago
  A sliding-scale subscription model would be nice, where I could say "I'll pay $100 per month and have no adverts at all" or "I'll only $5 per month, and I'm happy to have a lot of adverts". But the advertisers probably want access to the kind of people who are prepared to part with a lot of money to avoid advertising. You see this in the FT and Economist where it's more expensive to advertise to subscribers, because the advertisers know those people have higher disposable income. If all they can have access to is lower-paid people, I guess there’s a risk a lot of the advertisers will not bother. Maybe there's just an inherent problem here. News can be good quality, independent from government, free from advertising, and available to all. But it can't be all of those things at the same time at a national level.

bkor 7y ago

> And btw: I wanted to cancel my subscription afterwards, but apparently you can't do that via web from the EU (or not for my subscription type?) - so I need to cancel on the phone, during american business hours. There's existing NL law (maybe based on EU regulation?) that makes this impossible. Basically: the way you cancel should be as easy as you subscribe. Meaning, if you could subscribe online, you must be able to cancel the subscription online. If subscribing was utterly difficult, then cancelling can be utterly difficult. If there's EU regulation behind it, usually you can force any foreign company to abide by this. Unfortunately it was difficult to figure out if this NL law was based on any EU regulation (e.g. Consumer Rights Directive from https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/consumers/consumer-contract-law/consumer-rights-directive_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/consumers/consumer-c...).

ohmyblock 7y ago

had same problem trying to cancel my subscription, I've canceled payments through paypal

honkycat 7y ago

I did the exact same thing. I was so pissed off about having to see ads on a website I was paying for. They do the same thing to the US: They force you to call them. I tried to cancel my credit card to get rid of the charge: soon after, they started charging me again. In the end I had to call my credit card company and block all transactions from them, forever. Super scummy, super annoying. Fuck the NYT.

wasted_intel 7y ago

I had the same experience with the Globe and Mail in Canada. You get ads regardless of whether or not you're a paying subscriber, and while you can sign up online, you can't cancel. It was a total pain in the ass to do that over the phone, and it's a glaringly-obvious (and misguided) retention tactic. I'll never subscribe to them again. What a short-sighted way to optimize for revenue at any cost.

levesque 7y ago

Same thing with Wall Street Journal. Can't cancel via web, gotta waste 15 minutes on the phone. Never subscribing again.